Seven months after the story-songs of Rehearsing My Choir comes the companion album, recorded around the same time with just the grandkids on the mic. The earlier record's "difficulty" is debatable; Rehearsing My Choir failed for many (including me), but not because it was too opaque or complicated. Taken as a whole, the lyrics were probably the most accessible the band has written so far. But the lead voice and format, both of which were chosen with a reasonable expectation of the intended effect, were never going to work for everybody. It was a specialty item.
Bitter Tea is a very different record: no Olga Sarantos; no overriding narrative; not as much in the way of recurring musical themes. But it's cut from the same cloth, and its "meaning," or the meaning of individual songs, is surely even harder to grasp. This is not by any stretch a turn toward the accessible, though there are a few great pop moments. We'll get to those in a sec.
What comes to mind during early listens is how odd this record sounds, and how often the production on Fiery Furnaces' records is overlooked. Some of the distinctiveness is up to Eleanor Friedberger's voice, with her English major's diction and her ability to make the dozen or so notes in her natural range do all kinds of work. Her brother understands her strengths, writing for her crisp lines that draw attention to the grammatical construction. "To see: could there one for me be?" from this record's "Waiting to Know You", for example. But Bitter Tea as a sonic experience, in terms of the instruments used and the effects used on them, is even more exceptional.
For starters, this makes two albums in a row where a tinny upright piano dragged from a the lounge of a depression-era bordello functions as the signature instrument, stitching together the patchwork songs with Matt Friedberger's speedy little trills. Before it seemed to reference a radio play; here it serves as a reminder that we inhabit the world of one band and one band only. Other interesting choices abound: squelchy Moog that references neither the instrument's classic era nor its 90s update; distorted percussion meant to be disorienting instead of forceful; a disco beat that gyrates in place with quotation marks standing in for the mirror ball.
Then there's the regular stream of backward vocals, the record's most pressing recurring motif. On tracks like "In My Little Thatched Hut", "The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry", and "Nevers", the words move backward but the melody still fits the chords. The technique may allude to a wrinkle in time or some sort of aphasia, but it also points up how little comprehension of the actual lyrics matters to the enjoyment of Fiery Furnaces' music. I consider myself a curious person but I couldn't care less what's actually being said on the backward bits.
Puzzling over meanings and allusions seems a worthwhile project, though, and I've no doubt that on some level the words can bear such scrutiny. Some amount of detective word might transform some of the less musically engaging tracks into something enjoyable. I can't find much in "I'm In No Mood", "The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry", or "Whistle Rhapsody" to draw me back again; to my ears they serve mostly as reminders of Bitter Tea's gassy bloat (72 minutes, though two tracks repeat at the end in different mixes). The album seems to drag in its final third, but really the lesser tracks are spread evenly throughout. It's more a cumulative weariness than any sort of front-loading.
Which is unfortunate since Bitter Tea contains some of Fiery Furnaces' best songs. "Teach Me Sweetheart" is unfailingly gorgeous, a perfect melding of experimental production ideas that match perfectly the mood and the sweet, undeniable melody. "Waiting to Know You" is almost as good with its prom night slow dance chord progression, and bizarre mix; there's no logical reason why this song needs an absurdly fat Moog bass, but hey, turns out it does. "Police Sweater Blood Vow" seems like a quirky leftfield pop hit; in another time it might have been this band's "Birdhouse in Your Soul", And "Benton Harbor Blues", particular in its second mix, which omits a meandering two-minute intro, shows how effortlessly Matt Friedberger can come up with a simple, breezy, and likeable pop tune when so inclined. If Fiery Furnaces wanted a shortcut to a larger audience, this track points the way.
But such a path probably doesn't interest these two. Fiery Furnaces have other things in mind, and so far the project seems in part to be about finding a way to challenge themselves and stay interested when writing good, catchy songs comes so easy. Fiery Furnaces is the work of thought and calculation rather than instinct. This imparts a chilly remove to the records but I don't think that's a criticism. There's no shortage of direct and heartfelt indie rock that talks about the passion, but nothing else going sounds like the Fiery Furnaces' carefully considered babble.
